Articles Tagged with#DaVita

HealthCare Partners Holdings LLC, d/b/a DaVita Medical Holdings LLC (DaVita), will pay $270 million to settle its False Claims Act liability for providing inaccurate information causing Medicare Advantage Plans to receive increased Medicare payments. DaVita voluntarily disclosed that caused MAOs to submit incorrect diagnosis codes to CMS and obtain inflated payments in which DaVita and HealthCare Partners shared. For example, HealthCare Partners disseminated improper medical coding guidance instructing its physicians to use an improper diagnosis code for a particular spinal condition that yielded increased reimbursement from CMS. Based on these self-disclosures, and DaVita’s cooperation with the government’s subsequent investigation, the United States agreed to a favorable resolution of potential claims arising from the conduct.

The settlement also resolves allegations made by a whistleblower that HealthCare Partners engaged in “one-way” chart reviews in which it scoured its patients’ medical records for diagnoses its providers may have failed to record. It then submitted these “missed” diagnoses to MAOs to be used by them in obtaining increased Medicare payments. At the same time, it ignored inaccurate diagnosis codes that should have been deleted and that would have decreased Medicare reimbursement or required the MAOs to repay money to Medicare.

The allegations of “one-way” chart reviews were brought in a lawsuit under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the Federal False Claims Act. This statute permits private parties to sue on behalf of the government for false claims and to receive a share of any recovery. The whistleblower in this action is James Swoben, who was a former employee of an MAO that did business with DaVita. Mr. Swoben will receive $10,199,100 for the settlement of the “one-way” allegations.